Phoenix Medical Practice

Updated 5 October 2023

Phoenix Medical Centre is located at 33 Bell Lane, Burham, Rochester, Kent, ME1 3SX and has a branch surgery at Eccles Surgery, White House, Mackenders Lane, Eccles, Maidstone, ME20 7HX.

The practice offers services from both a main practice and a branch surgery. Patients can access services at either surgery (with Eccles Surgery being used for certain nurse, healthcare assistant and physiotherapy appointments). We visited Phoenix Medical Centre only as part of this inspection.

The practice offered dispensing services from its Burham practice to those patients on the practice list who live more than one mile (1.6km) from their nearest pharmacy (currently 95% of the patient list).

The provider is registered with CQC to deliver the Regulated Activities, Diagnostic and screening procedures, Maternity and midwifery services, Family planning and Treatment of disease, disorder or injury and surgical procedures.

These are delivered from both sites. The practice is situated within the Kent and Medway Integrated Care Board (ICB) and delivers General Medical Services (GMS) to a patient population of about 5,580. This is part of a contract held with NHS England.

The practice is part of a wider network of GP practices, Malling Primary Care Network (PCN). The practice is a training practice for trainee GPs.

Information published by Public Health England shows that deprivation within the practice population group is in the seventh lowest decile (seven of 10). The lower the decile, the more deprived the practice population is relative to others. According to the latest available data, the ethnic make-up of the practice area is 97% White, 1.5% Asian and 1.5% Mixed. The age distribution of the practice population closely mirrors the local and national averages. There are more female patients registered at the practice compared to males.

The practice is led by a principal GP who is supported by a salaried GP. The practice has a team of two nurses and two healthcare assistants, who provide nurse led clinics for long-term conditions at both the main and the branch locations. The GPs are supported at the practice by a team of dispensary and reception/administration staff. The practice manager is based at the main practice to provide managerial oversight.

The practices are open:

• Phoenix Medical Practice (known by patients as Burham Surgery) – Monday and Thursday 8.30am to 5pm and Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday 8.30am to 6pm.
• Eccles Surgery – Monday, Wednesday and Friday 8.30am to 12.30pm, Tuesday 7am to 12.30pm and Thursday 7.30am to 12.30pm.

The practice offers a range of appointment types including book on the day, telephone consultations and advance appointments. Extended access is provided locally by Malling PCN, where late evening and weekend appointments are available. Out of hours services are provided by Integrated Care 24.

Updated 5 October 2023

We carried out an announced comprehensive follow up inspection at Phoenix Medical Practice on 19 September 2023. Overall, the practice is rated as Good.

The ratings for each key question are as follows:

Safe – Good

Why we carried out this inspection

We carried out an announced inspection at Phoenix Medical Practice on 10 June 2022. Overall, the practice was rated as Good. We rated the practice as Requires Improvement for providing safe services and Good for providing effective, caring, responsive and well- led services. A breach in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014 was found and we issued a Requirement Notice as part of our enforcement action.

The full reports for previous inspections can be found by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Phoenix Medical Practice on our website at www.cqc.org.uk

How we carried out the inspection

This inspection was carried out in a way which enabled us to spend a minimum amount of time on site. This was with consent from the provider and in line with all data protection and information governance requirements.

This included:

• Conducting staff interviews using video conferencing.
• Completing clinical searches on the practice’s patient records system and discussing findings with the provider.
• Reviewing patient records to identify issues and clarify actions taken by the provider.
• A short site visit.

Our findings

We based our judgement of the quality of care at this service on a combination of:

• what we found when we inspected
• information from our ongoing monitoring of data about services and
• information from the provider, patients, the public and other organisations.

We have rated this practice as Good overall

We rated the practice as Good for providing safe services because:

• Improvements had been made to ensure an effective approach was applied to the safe care and treatment of patients prescribed medicines that required routine monitoring and those with long-term conditions. Care, as well as treatment was being delivered in line with current legislation, standards and evidence-based guidance.

We checked the areas where the provider should make improvements from our last inspection and found:

• The practice had completed their plan to ensure premises safety. For example, hot water pipe and cleaning risks had now been completed.
• Staff had received the physical aspect of basic life support training.
• The new systems for the checking of emergency equipment and medicines had been fully embedded.

We found no breaches of regulations. However, the areas where the provider should make improvements are:

• Continue to monitor newly implemented policies and procedures to ensure they are embedded effectively.

Details of our findings and the evidence supporting our ratings are set out in the evidence tables.

Dr Sean O’Kelly BSc MB ChB MSc DCH FRCA

Chief Inspector of Health Care